Veliuona 1919-1920

In WWI, the township Veliuona (Veliony, Wileny) on the right bank of the river Nemunas was passed through by fast-moving German cavalry of Abteilung Cnopf (BayerscheKavallerie-Division) on April 27, 1915 – the very first day of the German drive into Žemaitija and Courland. The area was back in Russian hands during their counter-offensive but was re-taken by German infantry (Abteilung Esebeck) in the second half of July. Veliuona had had a post office in czarist times but none during the German occupation.

After the German withdrawal from Russia at the end of 1918, Veliuona found itself outside of major conflict zones.

A mandate by Pašto Valdyba, dated July 3, 1919, to open a post office in Veliuona, as įgaliotinis, was issued to Feliksas Perminas who had been a postal employee in czarist times. He stayed on as postmaster of Veliuona until mid-May, 1923 when he was replaced by another ex-czarist postal employee, Juozas Sodaitis who in the meantime had worked at the post offices of Seinai, Virbalis and Šakiai.

In the early years of Lithuania’s independence, post offices were often re-opened or given a fresh start with helpful co-operation of local municipal bodies which provided accommodation and sometimes contributed to their upkeep. This was also the case at Veliuona where such assistance is evident from the fact that for a while the Veliuona P.O. used the local shire (valsčius) seal for cancelling stamps. A surviving fragment on a stamp reads “VELIUONOS VA[lsčiaus…].

The stamps available at Veliuona were Fourth Berlin Issue, followed by the Sėjėjas Issue etc. At first, cancelling was done in MS indicating date and place.

At a later date, the above mentioned municipal seal was used.

A regular calendar-type postmarker was supplied in ca. 1920 So far, nothing is known about early registration markings at Veliuona but a standard registration cachet was provided by mid-1920

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